'I'm going through hell': Alabama man pleads guilty to murder so daughter won't have to testify

An Alabama man who pleaded guilty to murdering his daughter's sexual abuser accepted a 40-year prison sentence to protect the woman from having to testify at trial.

Jay Maynor

"Basically he took it so that I didn't have to relive the molestation and also be on the stand in front of a bunch of people talking about and bringing back memories of the molestation," said Julia Maynor, of Cullman. "My father was protecting me, like a father should do. He is an amazing father -- actually the best. He loves us so much."

Now a 24-year-old mother of three, Julia Maynor was just 8 years old when the abuse came to light.

"Raymond molested me for either four or five years," Julia Maynor said. "I don't remember when it started happening but I know it was for a very long time. It was long enough for me to think it was completely normal and made me to feel that he actually loves me in a different kind of way than my mother and father loves me."

Brooks adopted Julia Maynor's mother at birth, and the woman knew him as her father until she was 21, five years after Julia was born.

The shooting, Julia Maynor said, was prompted by something she said to her father about the abuse.

"I haven't seen Raymond in years," Julia Maynor said. "It was just something I said out of anger to my father."

Those words, spoken June 8, 2014, shortly before Jay Maynor drove his motorcycle to Brooks' home, have faded from Julia's mind, she said.

On his way to Brooks' home, Jay Maynor also fired shots into a country store on U.S. 278 in the Berlin community. He fired into the Berlin Plaza Quick Stop when he saw a man who had been dating his stepdaughter.

Customers talk outside Berlin Plaza Quick Stop in Cullman, Ala., on June 10, 2014. The store was the scene of a shooting two days earlier that preceded the slaying on a man convicted of sexually abusing a girl in 2002. The girl's father is now charged with murder in the shooting.

Julia Maynor said her father fired at the man because he had been abusive toward her stepsister.

Because the boyfriend hid inside the building and was unharmed, Jay Maynor was charged with attempted murder. He also pleaded guilty to that crime Monday and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, to be served concurrently with the murder sentence.

Julia Maynor said she believes the prison sentence is unfair for a man who was just trying to protect his children. The sentence leveled against Brooks, too, was unfair, she said.

"He took my innocence away and only served like 18 months, and now I suffer daily from what Raymond did to me," Jullia Maynor said, adding she suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. "It's not fair."

Brooks pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in 2002. Although he was sentenced to five years in prison, he later received probation, court records show.

The Cullman County District Attorney's Office wasn't immediately available for comment.

"I'm going thru hell," Julia Maynor said. "Everything comes back to me as to why this has happened. I feel like it's my fault. I'm sad but yet mad."